It's a new week and a new poll says Julia Gillard's got to go. As far as the electorate's concerned, she's a Dead Leader Walking.
The Prime Minister conducted a live-in campaign tour of western Sydney, announced $1 billion for the WestConnex expressway, promised a brace of benefits for workers, pledged $1 billion for aged care staff, attacked foreign workers on 457 visas and championed ''Aussie jobs,'' and presided over strong growth in the number of people in jobs.
All for no electoral gain. The only movement in Labor's primary vote was a 1 per cent rise, which is within the poll's margin of error of 2.6 per cent. Neither offers to meet voters' needs nor appeals to their prejudices made any discernible difference. The evidence of the last month is that, as a campaigner, Gillard is ineffectual. So if Gillard can't do it for Labor, who can?
The poll tested the standing of four alternative leaders - Kevin Rudd and the three Gillard ministers most commonly touted as leadership material, Bill Shorten, Greg Combet and Bob Carr.
Asked whether they would prefer Gillard or Rudd, respondents chose Rudd by exactly two-to-one, 62 per cent to 31. His edge over Gillard on this measure has risen by 5 percentage points in the last month. Asked to choose between each of the other three and Gillard, respondents chose Gillard every time.
''The voters are saying, 'if we can't have Kevin Rudd, we'd rather have Julia Gillard over any of the alternatives','' Stirton concludes. In short, there is no realistic option of a ''third candidate'' to lead Labor.
That's sort of the problem, though, isn't it? It's too late to go back to Kevin Rudd because even if they did, they're not going to win. That choice was way back in February 2012, so as far as we can tell, the ALP is accepting it's going to go down with all hands, thank you very much Captain Improbable.
Julia Gillard defiantly says she won't flinch. Well, neither does a corpse, so I don't know how not flinching is going to help.
''I'll just keep getting on with it and dealing with the issues that actually matter and all of this kind of side-commentary can do whatever it does. It's not going to deter me - or distract me.''
Ms Gillard has just emphatically ruled out any prospect of her stepping down before the election, insisting Labor made its decision on leadership when it rejected Kevin Rudd's challenge last year. ''I haven't revisited it since and I won't be revisiting it. The decision's made.''
But, in an expansive exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Ms Gillard said Mr Rudd would play a prominent role in the election campaign, saying he would be ''asked to participate in the campaign more broadly than his own electorate''.She also indicated she would not resist a return by Mr Rudd to the front bench after the next election, saying: ''It would obviously be a matter for him that I would deal with in the circumstances of the time.''
Good heavens! After the next election when the ALP gets decimated in the polls, it might be only Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard remaining. She sure as heck won't be keeping the leader's seat after she presides over a mess that is likely to go down in history as the mother of all drubbings.
One of the more awful trends in the last few months has been the growing acceptance that come 15th September, it's going to be Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. It's like the 5 stages of grieving. We're done 'Denying' it. We've been 'Angry' for 3years now. Some people are trying to 'Bargain'.
The optimistic conclusion is this: Life under Tony Abbott may not be as bad as we fear. Perhaps. If we're lucky. Assuming he's fair dinkum and his mates don't succumb to the power aphrodisiac.
I forgot to mention the other finding from the German research was things never turn out as well as optimists predict.
Such is life …
This is what we have been reduced to. I guess I'm going straight to 'Depression'. It's going to be very hard to accept Tony Abbott as Prime Minister. There's something so insidiously wrong about that - but what can you do? Vote of Julia? Puh-lease!
How Rotten Is NSW Politics?
If anything has been busily hammering the nail into the coffin of the Federal ALP, it's been NSW ALP with all the horrible bits and pieces coming out of the ICAC inquiry. For a start, the Morbid Obedity that is being explored doesn't just cover coal; it turns out it covers Ron Medich and the Michael McGurk murder. It even goes far back as Offset Alpine. Eddie Obeid's right in there with Rene Rivkin. (In fact, that mess of course leads to the Caroline Byrne thing but we won't go into that here. The point of all this is that there was a cabal of people in and out of each other's deals, cleaning up on the scraps left over by government; and Eddie Obeid made sure that he left big scraps on the table and that a sizable portion of the scraps went into his own pockets.)
I seriously wonder if the ALP will survive this scandal. They may not come back for over a decade, both in NSW and Federally. We may be witnessing the end of the ALP. And they would only have themselves to blame.
Oh, let's never forget that Eddie Obeid's support and sway over the NSW Right Faction swung the numbers for Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib to oust Kevin Rudd. Julia Gillard may well wonder why she does so badly in NSW. If she could get her head around our deep disgust, then she might even get her head around flinching in revulsion and resigning.
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